


it's only me who wants to wrap around your dreams

by ameliathermopolis



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Unrequited Love, i would DEF not call this smut but it feels too charged to be fluff, spoilers through episode 69
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-22 17:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8293816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliathermopolis/pseuds/ameliathermopolis
Summary: The doors in Whitestone castle all creak. The windows bang if they are not attended to, and the hallways moan when the wind blows fair from the north. When she had first arrived there to stay, Pike thought it must be a lonely place, empty and aching from years of evil and neglect. Now, padding across the floors that have become familiar, she finds that perhaps it is just talkative. Whitestone is, if nothing else, a good land for ghosts. It almost gained a new one today. The warmth in her stomach from alcohol and good company fades, ice creeping in at the edges. She does not want to think about it, about him. Does not want to even recall the name of the person who had come to her laid out on a table, skin starting to grey and eyes staring out but not seeing. Perhaps if she thinks that it wasn’t him, not really, it will be easier to forgive herself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a 100 word drabble and it got away from me. I make no excuses or apologies. Fishee on tumblr requested a Pikeval fic using the prompts "Just once" and "I almost lost you" in the wake of Percy's death and subsequent resurrection. I hope I did her hopes justice.

The doors in Whitestone castle all creak. The windows bang if they are not attended to, and the hallways moan when the wind blows fair from the north. When she had first arrived there to stay, Pike thought it must be a lonely place, empty and aching from years of evil and neglect. Now, padding across the floors that have become familiar, she finds that perhaps it is just talkative. 

Whitestone is, if nothing else, a good land for ghosts. 

_It almost gained a new one today._ The warmth in her stomach from alcohol and good company fades, ice creeping in at the edges. She does not want to think about it, about him. Does not want to even recall the name of the person who had come to her laid out on a table, skin starting to grey and eyes staring out but not seeing. Perhaps if she thinks that it wasn’t him, not really, it will be easier to forgive herself.  _He shouldn’t have needed me that way, at all_ , she thinks,  _and if Keyleth hadn’t been there...I couldn’t have fought that thing._  The others would disagree with her, would tell her she’s their angel, their golden bullet, but she does not feel like an angel. She does not feel like a chosen daughter of the Goddess with her shaking hands and racing thoughts.  _I wasn’t even there_. 

The door to Percy’s room is not grand. Or, at least, it is not grander than the rest of theirs. It sits in the center of their hallway of rooms, a perfect vantage point. Ever since Hotis’ attack, Pike is sure that this is not a mistake. For a fleeting moment, she wants the door to be locked; to be free of the foolish impulse to check on him, to make sure that their ritual, her ritual, really took.

_Are you okay?_  Her friends’ words echo in the back of her mind.  _No. No, but I pretend to be, so everyone else can be._  It was and is a harder truth to swallow than she is prepared for. It is why she didn’t tell Vex and Keyleth it was Percy who had handily, thoroughly, stolen her heart. She had wanted to spare them from the surprise, from the having to pretend that she wasn’t being anything but a silly little girl, or that she had a chance of her feelings being returned. She had given up on praying for that chance long ago. If there is one thing in life that can kill as swift and sure as a blade, it is hope, never to be satisfied. 

Her one hand goes to the knob on Percy’s door, balancing the tray she’s brought up from the kitchens on the other, and she swallows hard.  _Just once, Pike Trickfoot,_ she thinks to herself. _Just this once, let yourself be selfish._

The door creaks conversationally as she enters, though the figure in the bed seems to pay its discussion no mind. The fire’s burned low in the grate, bathing the room in a warm orange glow. She closes it as quietly as she can behind her, eyes adjusting to the dark until she can just barely make out the outline of Percy, lying face first on his bed, boots and coat still on. A giggle escapes her lips. No one has ever said Pike Trickfoot is a stealthy gnome. He shifts when she walks towards him, groaning in his sleep. Pike remembers how tired she was after her own resurrection, how she finally understood the phrase “the sleep of the dead,” and does not fear him waking.  

She remembers the hunger, too. She places the pitcher of water and cup on the table next to his bed, along with a plate of fresh scones wrapped in a kerchief. Blueberry. His favorite. Pike hopes he will know they are from her when he wakes.  

Peace wears so well on Percy, she thinks, gazing down at the serene face half buried in his pillow. It has been a rare sight since they met all those years ago, she hiding behind Grog’s leg, and him in chains for a crime that would only later come to light, but it has always been one she’s treasured. Her fingers brush his hair from his eyes, tucking the strands that are starting to grow longer with each passing day behind his ear. 

_Just once_. Her hand curls to fit around his jaw, thumb resting against his cheek, as she bends to kiss his forehead. His skin is blissfully warm and she sighs when she feels his pulse under her palm, that small part of her anxiety that still feared for his life calmed. His breath tickles her neck and chest when her lips touch his skin, the kiss too long and too indulgent to be proper. It is a sin she will happily carry. 

It is an equally indulgent thought brought on by the softness of the light and the remnants of booze, but she wants to curl up in bed next to him, just for a minute, or five. Just to lay her head against his chest and listen to the brag of his heart, to the assertion of life that she’s learnt not to take for granted. One of her hands goes to the collar of his coat, testing how hard it would be to get it off and get him under blankets. The letter Vex was able to find in Percy’s coat is tucked back into its pocket, the white corner of its envelope-poking out just over his heart. Shame, hot and hard, rises in Pike’s throat. 

_It’s yours. It’s yours. It’s yours._  Pike knows that Percy’s heart is not a game, not a competition, but she cannot help but think that even if it were, she could never hope to win. Not against Vex, dear, darling Vex. In Percy’s life, she has always loomed so large, and Pike is only a small thing. Such a little thing, compared to her. 

Not too small to help, though. Never that. 

The boots have to go first, she decides. Her fingers attack the laces and buckles, and each one lands with a soft thump at her own feet. Percy stirs and tries to pull his legs away from her, but does nothing but snore. The coat proves harder. Even with the strength of a monster, a six and a half foot tall man is no light thing. Getting one sleeve off is not much of an problem, but Pike finds that the only way to remove the other is to pull Percy’s chest clear off the bed and he lands with a bounce.

Apparently, this last indignity is too much for the little prince. “Whateryoudoin’?” he grumbles as her hands lead him onto his back, already in the process of pulling the blankets over his legs. 

“Hush,” she whispers. “Go back to sleep.” One of Percy’s eyes slides open as she tucks the edge of a quilt around his shoulders and he lifts his arms in protest. 

“Pike?” 

“I’m sorry to wake you,” she says. Her hands go to either side of his face, moving him so that his head rests back on the pillows instead of lolling off to the side. “I didn’t mean to. Go back to sleep. Dream sweet dreams.” He smiles up at her, his hands moving to fit over hers.

“I’m glad that you’ve given me the opportunity to dream at all.” Pike feels warmth pool in her face, both from the touch and his words, and is thankful for the dim light. 

“It wasn’t me. Or...maybe it wasn’t just me.” Both of his eyes are open now, staring lazily up at her. She tries to move her hands, but his hold her fast for a moment, thumbs rubbing across her knuckles. He laughs, low and deep in his chest, and releases one of them, still holding her right hand. Her heart jumps into her mouth when she feels him brush his lips across the palm before letting go. 

“Either way, none of us can do what you can. So, thank you, Pike, for saving my life twice in one day. Will you ever learn to listen when I praise you?” 

It is meant to be a joke. She hears the lilt in his voice, the lightness in his tone, can even see something resembling a sparkle deep in his eyes, but the laugh she knows should come does not lift with the same joy. Her hands join, fingers twisting together, and the longer she looks down at Percy, so alive, so here, the more she wants to cry. Percy’s half smile fades the longer she is silent. “Have I said something?” 

“I...I...” she mutters. “I shouldn’t have had to save you at all. You shouldn’t have...have died at all, Percy, don’t you see that?” His stare remains blank, unknowing. The lump in Pike’s throat threatens to choke her. All thoughts of propriety leave her as her hands go to his hair, grabbing fistfuls of white, leaning forward so low their noses almost touch.

“I almost lost you. And it would have been my fault,” she whispers and tries desperately to ignore how her voice cracks. There have been enough tears shed today and she wants no more of them, even as the hot, wet trails burn down her cheeks. Percy looks up at her, head still cradled in her hands. His blue eyes, the color of the ocean and twice as deep, hazy and unfocused without his glasses, are suddenly sharp. “I should have  _been_  there, I should have-” 

“No.” Percy sits up so fast it almost makes her dizzy. His hands go to her waist when she threatens to fall and lift her up on to the bed so that they are looking eye to eye. It is a disconcerting feeling, and all at once Percy’s eyes pierce too deep and Pike fears what he will find, if she has already said too much. “No. If you had been there...if you had been there, she would have killed you too.  Just like she was trying to kill everyone else. And I know myself better than to think my sanity would have survived watching you die again.” 

_Again._  The word drops between them like stone. 

Pike has replayed the moment of her death so often in her imagination that her dreams feel more like memories. She remembers the throne room with it’s cracked dais. She remembers her friends, fighting for their lives and the city that swelled out from beneath their feet. She remembers a shadow in the shape of a monster best left to nightmare and myth.

A stab.

A snap.

A fall.

And the dark.

She had been dead before she’d hit the ground. The clerics at the temple had told her as much. Pike can still close her eyes and see the patterned glass of the ceiling, her first sight in her new life. It had been a depiction of the Goddess, her white and gold wings out stretched, her arms spread in welcome with the promise of asylum. Now…now, it is a ruin. _I wonder if it is fate that I feel like I am following suit_.

In the space between her fall and her resurrection, there is no memory, or at least none that are solid and real. There is mist and smoke swirling around her feet, the brush of something against her legs, the tugs and pushes of a hundred fingers against her arms and hands, and always the darkness, blinding and merciless, carrying with it the knowledge that a journey must be taken, that she must put one foot in front of the other and go, or be lost. Where she would have gone, she does not know. What would have happened if she had stayed, she dares not dream.

Her gaze refocuses, finds Percy’s, and Pike lets out the breath she didn’t know she had been holding. All the air rushes out of her and her body leans forward, curling against Percy’s chest until her head is on his shoulder, arms winding their way around him so her hands can splay across his back. He doesn’t resist her, and that is perhaps the sweetest gift he could give. His arms loop around her and squeeze.

“I couldn’t,” Percy mutters against her hair, his voice so soft she can barely hear him. His long, deft fingers start to tangle into the mess of her braids. “I’m not strong enough.” A laugh, high and muddled with tears, bubbles in Pike’s throat.

“You think I could?” she asks. “You think I am?”

Silence crowds around them, broken only by the crackling of fire and the caws of ravens’ roosting on the battlements. Percy’s heart beats steady and strong against Pike’s cheek, a declaration and a lullaby intertwined. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about angels since we last left Whitestone.” One of Percy’s hands rubs between her shoulder blades and Pike leans further into his chest. “I think we’ve done them a grand injustice in these all too modern times. My mother had a great interest in ancient theology. She cultivated a whole section of our library devoted to the subject. By the by, were you lying about having not read _all_ my recommendations yet, or lying about having read _any_ of them?” Pike smiles against the soft linen of his shirt and laughs.

“What do you think?" 

“That Grog and Scanlan have had a horrendous influence on your intellectual pursuits, but that is beside the point. One of the books I gave to you was one of her favorites – a volume she had purchased for a frankly obscene amount of money from the Cobalt Reserve. It read like a fairy tale, filled with stories of the days when old magic was still young, and older gods walked the earth instead of keeping to their planes.” Pike’s eyes grow heavy the longer he talks and the longer his hands work on her back. His hands were the first part of him she loved, with their wide palms and long fingers, covered with callous and capable of harm and gentleness in equal measure. She relaxes into those hands, lets him melt and mold her like iron in his forge. 

“It was always the stories of the angels of the gods that interested me. They weren’t fluffy mouthpieces for the divine. They were…well, they were like you, Pike.” Percy lifts his head from its resting place against hers and she swears she can hear the smile in his voice. “They were soldiers. Creatures of salt and stone and steel. Vehicles of divine destruction, or divine deliverance. Agents of justice and fate and, if you were very lucky, forgiveness for sins grievous and deep. And they all had very lovely wings, just like you.” His laugh is deep and resonant this time and Pike feels it in her entire body. 

“You flatter me too much,” she mumbles. “All of you are going to make me vain and envious and then what will you all do when Sarenrae abandons me for a more worthy champion?”

“I have never met a more selfless person than you, Pike. That is not flattery,” he interjects when she opens her mouth to interrupt. “That is truth, plain and simple, just as you like it to be. Any god should feel fortunate to have you on their side. And any person, for that matter.”

It was not the first time one of her friends had claimed such things about Pike. Scanlan’s romantic intentions notwithstanding, it had been Vax’ildan that, until recently, had been the most outspoken about her connection to the divine. He had not been blessed with a choice in regards to his own deity, after all. She does her best not to think that perhaps he would have if she had been there with them on that particular day, too.

_I am, I am, I am,_ Percy heartbeats proclaims to her, and Pike snuggles a little closer against his chest. “I don’t think I would have been able to bear it if you hadn’t come back to me. If I…if I failed you like that,” she mutters. The right thing, the noble thing, would have been to say “to us.” It would also have been a lie. Percy’s hands pause in their traversal of her back.

“You could never fail me.” The severity in his voice makes her look up, and her breath catches when she finds an equal intensity in his eyes. “You…you.” Percy sighs, his gaze breaking from hers, and leans back against the intricate woodwork of the bed posters. He lifts his right hand to brush the hair out of Pike’s eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Pike’s breath catches when he fits his palm to where her jaw meets her neck, his thumb brushing from the corner of her mouth to her ear. For a moment, it feels like he is trying to fix her into place, as if his eyes, his voice, his very being wasn’t enough to hold her still. His eyes meet hers again and for the first time, Pike can see just how deep they go, and the despair he carries. It is a despair she thought was only her own. “You fly on angel’s wings so far above me, and I am barely worthy enough to gaze upon your course.”

“Hush.” Pike lifts a hand and places her fingers against his mouth. “Hush, please, this isn’t…you don’t mean that. It is just gratitude talking, you’ll feel more sensible in the morning.” His laugh is mirthless this time and it is Percy who breaks their shared gaze, if only for a few seconds. 

“Sensible. What a good word to describe me. Perhaps the world can stand to be a little less sensible every so often.” The blue of his eyes is cold like ice on a frozen lake when he looks back to her. They are set in a face devoid of peace, squarely in a mask she has come to know well. “It is not gratitude. It is…gods above, why are words so hard?” he growls. “They just pile on and on to each other, making castles when a cottage will do. I…this…it should be so simple. It _is_ so simple and yet I cannot find the words to make you believe me. They elude me, like so much prey, barely sighted before sprinting away. Perhaps that is just a well. Perhaps I should not speak of such things, when I am unsure of the outcome.”

“Be plain, then. Be simple,” Pike says, her voice barely above a whisper. Any moment now, she is sure she will be pitched backwards, out of this dream and back face down on a bar top.

“So often, we have thought ourselves immortal or impenetrable, myself worst of all,” he says. “I have brushed with death so often, perhaps I thought I was quicker than it, braver, more clever. But that never is the truth, is it? Not for mortals such as we are. I died yesterday. I live again today, because of you.” Pike flinches hard, shakes her head, wants desperately to close her eyes and block out his gaze, but she can’t. “I am so _tired_ , Pike,” he says with a great sigh. “I am tired of living as though I am not running out of time, as though each passing day, with all the joy and happiness and victory it may bring, is also a sign of lost opportunities, of failures great and small. I am tired of pretending that I do not feel as I do, of pretending that I do not _want_ , that I do not _crave_ what I could not hope to earn.”

Percy’s gaze drags down to rest on her mouth and Pike feels her entire body freeze and then tremble. “Forgive me for my hunger, sweet angel.”

They meet in the middle of the space between them, her arms going around his neck as his wrap around her torso. His lips are warm, but rough and desperate once they meet, pressing as close as they can to her own. Her hands are in his hair before Pike can even think to hold back, grabbing hard so she can pull herself up to his level. 

It has been so long since she’s been kissed, really kissed, and Pike finds that is starved for it. She had often wondered what he would taste like when she alone and tending to her garden. As in all things, Percy does not disappoint. His mouth opens to deepen the kiss and she trembles as his tongue drags across the seam of her lips before delving between them. The cool snap of mint twists with the comforting deepness of strong black tea and cinnamon on her tongue. She squeezes her eyes shut and presses closer, letting herself explore in kind. Her hands leave his hair and press to his jaw, holding him in place as she runs her tongue across his teeth, his lower lip, the roof of his mouth. When he moans against her, she can feel it from her scalp to her toes. 

It would be so _easy_ , she thinks, so easy to fall and never rise until they were both spent and tangled together. Percy’s hands set her skin alight wherever they touch, one dragging up her side to tangle in her hair, the other placed solidly against the small of her back, securing her against his chest. Her heart is beating a tattoo against her chest and she wonders if he can feel it, if he can hear the love it shouts at him. _It’s yours_. _Every piece of me_.

Though she would give up the most beautiful wings for it, Pike knows, too well, that just as he was never hers to lose, he is not hers to take.

Percy’s teeth pull at her bottom lip when Pike pulls back, eyes still closed. Her hands rest on his shoulders, gripping at the linen of his shirt as if he will disappear the moment she looks upon him. His breathing slows and evens where it brushes against her neck, but he does not move or prompt her. Once she’s able to catch her breath and stop herself from trembling, Pike’s hands unclench. Her eyes open slowly. Whether it is because she is afraid of finding Percy there or finding he has vanished like a vision, she can’t pretend to know. 

Their faces are still close enough that when Pike leans forward, their foreheads touch.

“Pike.” Percy’s voice is soft, crackling against the quiet of the night. “I…I…" 

“Be simple,” she whispers to him. “Be plain.” His breath catches and he swallows, eyes flicking everywhere but at her for a moment before he seems to gather himself together.

“I don’t think I can be. What I feel for you is too big, too complex, like a swirling storm trying to beat its way out of me. I feel like I could keep you here for weeks explaining it and I would barely have time to draw breath between thoughts.” Percy’s hands raise to frame her face. When their eyes meet, there is such joy and lightness in his that Pike almost starts to cry. She wants to keep him, capture him in this moment forever, at a peak so high that neither of them has to think about descent.

“Oh, Percy,” she sighs, shaking her head a little. “I’m afraid. Not of you,” she adds when she sees the flash of fear cross his face. “Never of you. Just…after all that’s happened the last two days, I can’t shake the feeling that this, all of this, hasn’t been borne out of anything but gratitude. I don’t understand why you would…why you would feel such things for me. I don’t think you’re _lying_ , but it all seems too good to be true. Like one of my dreams given life.” Pike bites her lip and finds that, this time, she can’t meet his eye. “What I feel for you has always been torturously simple. But I have never dreamed of asking for it to be returned. I stopped hoping for it a long time ago.”

Percy’s arms move slowly, curling around her so that she pressed to his chest again, her head cradled in one hand. Pike doesn’t resist. His lips press to her forehead and she feels, but does not see, him shake his head.

“You never had to ask, love,” he says. “You never had to hope.”

A wave of warmth washes over Pike, and all at once, she stops fighting. If this is a dream, a moment meant only for one night and no other, at least it is this one dream. At least it is this one night.

“You mean it?” she asks. “Truly?”

“Truly. Madly. Deeply.”

Later, Pike will not be able to remember how long they sat like that, wrapped up in each other and their own perfect dream.

Reality finally breaks through the haze of bliss as her fingers trail down Percy’s neck and find for the first time a metal chain, cool against the heat of his skin. Her necklace, broken after its task was completed, hangs from his neck still. The enchanted jewel that swirled with captured divine light is shattered, leaving an empty space within the skeletal heart shaped metal frame. Pike places a hand over it and the cold metal scrapes against her skin. It is such a small thing. Such a little thing. But not too small to help.

“You should take it back,” Percy says. “It doesn’t belong to me, and I’ve made quite a mess of it.”

“It served its purpose,” she whispers, rubbing her thumb along the curves of the heart. “It was yours the moment you put it around your neck.”

“But it isn’t-,”

“Then it is mine to give to whom I choose,” she corrects gently. “Fix it. Make it new again. Perhaps I can come with you all next time you adventure beyond our little castle walls and get it re-enchanted. It would help me not worry for you so much.” 

“Do you worry so much, Pike?” Percy asks.

“About you? Constantly.” A smile splits her face from ear to ear at the bewildered look on his face and she leans forward to kiss the tip of his nose. His hands feel big and warm between hers as she clasps them around the necklace and squeezes. “I know you will have to leave again,” she says. “You seem perfectly addicted to being a hero now that you’ve gotten a taste for it. Just…” She laughs and looks down at their joined hands. “Just remember what you carry, besides your cares and your fears. Remember…remember that you are my heart, Percy. Even if you are broken.”

They will have to talk about this later, about what this great feeling, this binding of hearts they’ve started together will mean. But that is for tomorrow, Pike thinks, for garish sunlight and the reminders of war and death that wait, ever patient, in the wings. But he knows. That, in itself, is a great weight lifted.

“You have had a long day, and it’s time for all of us to be asleep.” Pike gives a little squeak when Percy’s arms tighten around her.

“Don’t go.”

“I’ll only be across the hall.”

“Don’t go,” he says again, and it sounds so much like a childish whine that Pike starts to laugh. She drops a kiss to the top of his head as he pulls her closer, face pressed to her neck. He presses a kiss where her neck meets her shoulder and nuzzles against her. “I don’t want to let you go just yet.”

“Only by letting go can we ever return,” Pike chides, tugging gently on his hair so he has to look up at her. “I have suffered having to watch you leave me before. Surely you can survive the night, my big, strong hero?” Percy pouts in response to her raised eyebrow. She smiles and leans down to kiss it away.

Pike is off of him and landing on her feet next to the bed before Percy can make another grab for her.

“To bed and sleep with you, de Rolo,” she says. Her gauntlets flash with arcane energy as she pins him down with one hand and tucks him into bed with the other. When she looks back at his face, she thinks she seems a little more a flush in his cheeks, and a little more of a spark in his eye due to the show of strength. She files the thought away for later exploitation.

“Promise me you’ll not disappear before morning?” Percy asks her when she bends on her tip toes to kiss his forehead. “Promise me you won’t have been a dream?” Pike smiles and presses one kiss to his forehead and one to his nose before finally finding his lips again.

“Only if you will promise me the same, my lord.” Percy’s smile comes easily, and Pike happily returns it.

“On my honor as a de Rolo, my lady.”

“On my honor as a Trickfoot, though I think that means far less than your promise, if we are to only go by our names.” Stepping away from him causes a tug in Pike’s chest, but she knows if she does not leave now, it will be too tempting to stay the night. “Good night,” she says, turning for the door with a stride far more confident than she imagined herself capable of.

“Good night, sweet angel.”

Percy’s door closes behind her with a thud full of finality and the cold of the corridor cuts through her like a knife until she scampers back into her own room. The sight of her bed, and the loss of a certain human’s touch, causes the exhaustion she’s felt all night to come rushing back full force and she has to lean on her door to keep from stumbling.

She doesn’t bother looking at where her clothes and gauntlets fall as she pulls them off and tosses them in all directions. It is no use worrying any more about anything tonight.

Pike collapses naked onto her bed, bundling up in the warm furs and blankets as best she can while still fighting sleep. Tomorrow and all the days after will bring what they will bring. There is and never has been any fighting that. As Pike brushes her fingers over her lips, swollen and warm, she finds the thought oddly comforting, and for the first time in far too long a time, she drifts into an easy, dreamless sleep.


End file.
